Today’s Zippy takes us to Minneapolis MN, where people are flinging bowling balls, flinging them down Memory Lanes:
(#1)
Linguistic notes: Ok, the pun on lane (in a bowling alley vs. in the metaphorical idiom down memory lane ‘in your memory of the pleasures of past events’ (Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms)). And the pun on fling (the verb fling ‘throw, toss’, as in impelling a bowling ball, vs. thing in the Proust title Remembrance of Things Past). It’s all about memory.
The bowling alley. The actual retro neon sign in #1:
(#2)
From their website:
Memory Lanes and Flashback Cafe & Cocktail Lounge, Minneapolis MN
Our state-of-the-art facility (with retro decor) is the perfect destination for any occasion! We have 30 bowling lanes, a full-service bar & restaurant featuring pizzas, sandwiches, burgers and other favorites with 17 tap lines and a wide selection of bottled and canned beer and all the popular spirits, live music and other live events, 29 LCD screens for your viewing pleasure, 2 outdoor sand volleyball courts, darts and arcade games.
Not just pizza, sandwiches, and burgers, but an assortment of America’s favorite appetizers:
(#3)
From the bottom to the top. Polish sausage from the areas of Polish settlement in the U.S. (especially the northern industrial belt, from Buffalo through Minneapolis). BBQ chicken wings, originally from the South and as soul food, and, eventually, served with blue cheese dressing as “Buffalo wings”. Huevos rancheros originally from the American Southwest and now available almost everywhere as a standard “Mexican” dish. Walleye (pike) from the Great Lakes area, especially Minnesota. And sliders, associated originally with the mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions of the country.
OED draft additions June 2015 on slider:
Chiefly U.S. Originally (slang): a hamburger. Now chiefly: a small hamburger; (more generally) any small sandwich made with a roll. [first cite 1974, Chicago Tribune; then 1981 in the Chicago Tribune, referring to White Castle’s little square burgers; later, 2006, grilled ahi tuna sliders, and, 2011, the sloppy-joe slider]
(so called, of course, because they slide easily dow the throat).
More food. In the third panel of #1, Zippy’s thoughts veer onto Little Debbie Pecan Spinwheels, possibly from an association to spinning (that is, rolling and turning) bowling balls:
(#4)
(Zippy is also a great fan of Little Debbie snack products (from McKee Foods), as well as Hostess snack foods, so Little Debbies are always in his mind.)
From the Little Debbie website:
Pecan Spinwheels® Sweet Rolls: A soft, fun pastry rolled with cinnamon spice and pecans .
Where to get Little Debbies in Minneapolis? Zippy’s looks to Kowalski’s Market, in a chain of markets in Minneapolis and surrounding areas.
Note. Ford’s vice president was Nelson Rockefeller. You’re on your own for zero sum and gnome vs. genome. And the 1958 Metro (a real car, but apparently not one that Zippy owns).
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